Warco: an FPS where you hold a camera instead of a gun

Warco is a game that puts you in the role of a war correspondent filming the …

Warco is a first-person game where players shoot footage instead of a gun. A work in progress at Brisbane-based studio Defiant Development, the game is a collaboration of sorts; Defiant is working with both a journalist and a filmmaker to create a game that puts you in the role of a journalist embedded in a warzone. Ars spoke with Defiant's Morgan Jaffit to learn more about this political game disguised as an FPS.

The game was actually the brainchild of someone outside of the studio. Tony Maniaty, an Australian journalist who has reported from regions like East Timor and post-Soviet Eastern Europe, envisioned the game as a sort of training simulator. He then began working on the project with filmmaker Robert Connolly, who directed the film Balibo, a political thriller about the deaths of Australian journalists during the conflict in East Timor in 1975. Eventually Jaffit and Defiant were brought into the project.

"It's been a great partnership, with Tony giving the game a great grounding in the real world issues of war journalism, Robert lending his structural and cinematic eye, and Defiant helping to channel that into something that's interactive and engaging," Jaffit told Ars.

"It offers a new perspective on a familiar theme, which enables us to use the tools and techniques of other FPSes to build a completely different kind of narrative and experience. From a design perspective, that's what excited me."

The game itself—the title of which is actually short for "war correspondent"—follows the story of journalist Jesse DeMarco. Players will experience the process of filming conflicts, going into dangerous situations armed with nothing but a camera. They will then edit the footage into a compelling news story. The scenarios range from intense bursts of action to quieter moments as you discuss the events of the day with fellow journalists in a hotel. Though the main mechanic will be filming the action, Warco is also very much about choice.

Warco

"It's also about navigating through a morally gray world and making decisions that have human impact," he explained. "It's about finding the story you want to tell, as each of our environments is filled with different story elements you can film and combine in your own ways. It's both a story telling engine and an action adventure with a new perspective."

The scenarios are designed to mirror the recent tumultuous events in the Middle East and North Africa, in situations cribbed from Maniaty's real-world experiences in the field.

A game that looks a lot like a first-person shooter but doesn't actually allow players to fire any bullets could potentially be difficult to market, and one unnamed publisher recently told the studio that "it's a hard sell to executives to suggest an FPS with no shooting, but this is definitely the sort of game we should be making, as an industry."

Warco has been in development for four months and Defiant is currently in talks with several publishers to try and bring the game to a wide audience. When that will actually happen, and on what platforms, hasn't yet been determined.

"We're optimistic that we'll find a way to make the project work as a commercial reality."

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War Stories | Ultima Online: The virtual ecology

War Stories | Ultima Online: The virtual ecology

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Hmm. Interesting concept and I'll give them points for attempting something a little different but I'm concerned it could end up being just plain boring to put it bluntly. If they release a demo or it's cheap enough I'm still willing to at least give it a chance.

On the one hand it needs freedom of choice to engage the player, but on the other it needs a compelling story.Creating a compelling story that has multiple pathways and reacts to your decisions is difficult, just look at any RPG. You can get away with stupid NPCs in fantasy world, but not in a 'realistic' modern war simulation.

This has obvious applications beyond FPS - "you're the embedded reporter with an Alliance raiding party deep in Horde territory", and maybe you've got a live feed back to the wall screen at the tavern...

The idea itself is commendable, and could make an interesting game. Perhaps not one appealing to very large audiences, but to some.

The problem, at least judging by the video, will be execution. I'm not talking about graphics or animation, but the fact that it seems that the cameraman in question is simply running around in an arcade combat. Gets hit at least once, and keeps on running in the same unbelievable speed. Films troops shooting directly at him with assault rifles. Rockets fired from the rebel vehicle and exploding a vehicle only few metres away. Even the combatants are just standing there and shooting automatic fire without even aiming towards a target that is only ten metres away.

Never been in an actual combat myself, but I can't really imagine it being arcade-styled shoot-em-up running around in the hail of bullets. And in a game about the cruelty of war and conflict through the eyes of a war reporter, I think, the portrayal should be as realistic as possible, to capture the feeling. Distant sounds of fighting, lying among the ruins waiting the soldiers of the unit you are embedded waiting orders. The sounds of the environment and uncertainty where the action is.

The makers of this game should watch Armadillo, the Danish documentary about the war in Afghanistan to get the understanding what they need to strive for when trying the capturing the "feel" of the battle, rather than play arcade FPSes.

It's an intriguing concept and I'll certainly try a demo, but I feel like being a slave to reality is a misstep. Video games have more power than other art forms to communicate relatively concrete ideas through abstract or fantastical means, look at the excellent "Flower" for example. Simple clean graphics with strong art direction will allow the user to draw their own conclusions and have an emotional connection.

I think if realism is the goal they should go all out. Have quicktime event battles against the government trying to censor you. Mini games where you add or remove blood or tears, etc, in a "fun" version of photoshop.

Have the game take a 100% neutral stance and let the user create the "propaganda" for or against the war. "There are no bystanders" is your tagline. :)

As far as dying I think that just saying the user was critically injured and had to be rushed to the hospital works fine as an explanation.

I mean it's usually the shots that happen after the fight that are interesting and speak to people. Also, there is nowhere near the amount of sustained gunfire as in most video games. It's the tension and boredom that get to you.

But really, in this day and age we can't even trust documentaries and realism in video games doesn't seem to accomplish much.

@zer0her0Point 1 especially, is a good idea. People love flickr and the like. I like the idea of making a Dead Rising style environment with tons of interesting easter eggs and details and then leaving it up to the users to sort it out. Maybe you get better equipment based on the ratings your photos receive?

I think making a Dead Rising, Mirror's Edge hybrid focusing on taking the right shot would have gotten the point across and attracted the gaming public at large. Throw the user in the middle of a massive violent sandbox without making it obvious who's good and who's bad. The only way to live is to help one side win by raising morale and getting more people to join your cause and leave the other.

This game will either be amazing or terrible, depending on how much effort the developers put into it. The idea that you can choose whether you want to report the fight as a human interest story or a desperate struggle sounds pretty compelling.

The YouTube video mainly looks like a proof-of-concept. I'm really hoping that the game is nowhere near finished, because the graphics and idea need polish. Also, I am really not down with the regenerating health cliche being used here either.

Looks boring, I want to see someones head asplode when I pull the trigger not some silly photo. Also the graphics are mediocre. This might have some use in a ethics or photography class, other than that I don't see many uses for it.

I can see this working, but only if they're creative about mission design. I'll pull a couple out of my ass.

Maybe have one mission where you go undercover in a warlord's compound, posing as a naive and sympathetic documentary filmmaker hoping to get the warlord's side of the story. Officially you're there to spread his message to the West, but secretly you're recording his side conversations with his generals and taking snapshots of documents.

Or in another scenario, the FBI releases a list of the ten most wanted terrorists in that region. On the ground you hear rumors these men are going into hiding. You spend the next 24 hours tracking down the last known whereabouts of each man and videotaping him.

BOOM, I could come up with this shit all day, hire me as a consultant!!! But seriously, have no idea if they're aiming for realism in this game, or just going all out Hollywood spy-thriller.

In certain superficial ways, this is a bit like a Photoshop artist who comes up with a game idea of performing retouch on sensitive news photos, or a layout artist whose game idea is to create compelling newspaper front pages

If by "challenging the moral assumptions regarding the interface between war and journalism" you mean "taking photographs of imaginary animals while accompanied by a smart-arse talking pig", then yes; they are very similar mechanics indeed.

If by "challenging the moral assumptions regarding the interface between war and journalism" you mean "taking photographs of imaginary animals while accompanied by a smart-arse talking pig", then yes; they are very similar mechanics indeed.

It has been years since I last played Beyond Good and Evil, but at least one mission was a sneak-and-peek to get photographs for the rebel newspaper.